Some Employment Dimensions of COVID-19 Recessions
- PDF / 479,904 Bytes
- 5 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 9 Downloads / 164 Views
Some Employment Dimensions of COVID‑19 Recessions Jomo Kwame Sundaram1
© Indian Society of Labour Economics 2020
It is misleading to say too much in general terms about the recessions unfolding in different parts of the world in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. There is not one single COVID-19 recession, but rather a variety of contractionary experiences. There are also many reasons for the slowdowns. Some of them are quite unrelated to COVID-19, and undoubtedly, more are worse off than might otherwise have been the case because pre-existing conditions and trends have combined with the epidemic’s effects, as well as both official and behavioural responses to it. It is obviously important to recognize that unlike the last few recessions in the world, COVID-19 recessions are not primarily financially driven, although financial fragility and vulnerabilities may well worsen them. In particular, finance has undoubtedly worsened various liquidity problems that have exacerbated the recessions. A keener contextual understanding of the role of liquidity and the nature of liquidity traps in different circumstances is crucial for designing and implementing more effective measures to efficiently provide liquidity for the variety of enterprises in the economies of developing countries. Recessions in many countries are largely due to supply-side constraints imposed by state authorities to enforce ‘stay-in-shelter’ lockdowns, such as physical distancing and other precautionary requirements, including in getting to and from workplaces and other public spaces or sites (Popov and Jomo 2020). In turn, these have undoubtedly affected aggregate demand due to their impact on livelihoods and incomes of the population. Businesses relating to many social activities, including public transportation and events, which involve close inter-personal proximity, are especially vulnerable and will require behavioural changes, at least until most people have been vaccinated or the virus threat is eradicated by some other means.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram: former UN Assistant Secretary General for Economic Development (2005–2012). * Jomo Kwame Sundaram [email protected] 1
Khazanah Research Institute, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
13
Vol.:(0123456789) ISLE
The Indian Journal of Labour Economics
1 Lockdown Recessions Due to Failure of Precautionary Early Actions COVID-19 is believed to have begun in Wuhan city in Hubei province. But even in China, lockdowns were only imposed in the three provinces around Wuhan, not in all of China. In the rest of East Asia, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Vietnam too, no nationwide lockdown was imposed (Nazihah and Jomo 2020). Localized lockdowns have been imposed in Vietnam, and recently in Beijing in mid-June, when and where the outbreak had spread out of control. The WHO fact finding mission to China emphasized the need for early precautionary actions, but unfortunately, this was not acted upon in much of the world. In most of the rest of the world, especially in the West, despite the fact that knowle
Data Loading...
